CAN BEING STUCK AT YOUR DESK ‘UNDO’ AN HOUR IN THE GYM?

DR LEANDRO GARCIA, a lecturer in complexity science in public health at Queen’s University Belfast, suggests that sitting could ‘cancel out’ some of the benefits of exercise.

‘The effect on health depends on the balance between physical activity and sedentary behaviour,’ he says. ‘We recommend all adults reduce sedentary behaviour as much as they can.’

Experts increasingly believe it may be more beneficial to move little and often rather than doing one 30-minute workout, say, then staying sedentary for the rest of the day.

‘Whether sitting can “undo” some beneficial effects of exercise is a question that needs further research,’ says Dr Paddy Dempsey, a medical research scientist at the University of Cambridge. ‘The effects of sitting are conditional on the intensity of and how much physical activity people do.

‘But if we spend most of our day sitting, meeting current physical activity recommendations alone may not be enough and we may need to significantly exceed current exercise recommendations to counteract the negative effects.’

And that is where little incidental bouts of movement could really help.